Cyclopean - Interview @ Critical Gamer

CG: It’s clear from the posts you’ve made on your forums that you’re not happy with many RPG staples. What are you changing and why? Which of your ideas would you most like other companies to pick up on?

Scott: I’ll stick with these three things:

I dislike dialogues where you choose from a selection of clichéd responses that have no actual impact on the game, or navigate to and from a menu of questions and answers. These antediluvian RPG conventions are nothing like real life conversations, and only barely distinguish dialogue from reading a message on a billboard.

I dislike FedEx quests and other meaningless in-game busywork. Go collect ten stalks of wheat from this field. What is that? It is a chore. The developer is making the player perform an uninteresting task as a build up to some fun gameplay which hopefully will be introduced later on. Shouldn’t the developer at least attempt to make the whole game fun?

Lastly, I prefer turn-based combat to real time. There are precious few true turn-based RPGs these days. Real-time-with-pause has become a common RPG compromise, but to me is completely dissatisfying. If I’m in charge of a group of NPCs with different skills and strengths, I want turn-based control. I enjoy watching attacks play out one at a time instead of trying to track a confused, start-and-stop melee. On the other hand, if I’m playing a shooter-style action game, I want action.